76-Year-Old Musician Completing CCRI Degree Decades After Starting

06/02/2025

Nearly 30 years after beginning his CCRI education, 76-year-old Ed McGuirl is about to check the final box on his long, fascinating résumé.

In the mid-1990s, the Jamestown resident studied at CCRI to pursue a social services degree that would complement his work as a substance-abuse treatment professional. But a busy work schedule forced McGuirl to indefinitely pause his studies – until now.

Ahead of the 2025 spring semester, McGuirl contacted CCRI to learn whether finishing his degree was realistic.

“I just thought of it,” said McGuirl, who was inspired by his many relatives who have college degrees. “I just said, ‘You know, let me call CCRI. I wonder what it would take for me to get a degree.’”

To McGuirl’s surprise, he was just 10 credits shy of being eligible to graduate.

“I was like, you’ve got to be kidding me,” McGuirl said during a recent CCRI commercial shoot. “I told my wife, and she said, ‘Do it! Do it!’

McGuirl then settled on three courses – French, geology, and math – to earn a degree in general studies. He completed the French and geology courses in the spring and enrolled in the math course for the 2025 summer semester. By next month, he’ll finally have his college degree.

“It’s great, it’s really satisfying,” McGuirl said of returning to school. “Once I started coming to school, I was like, ‘This is great. It’s a lot of fun!” And I’ve just really enjoyed doing something completely different from what I’ve been doing all these years, just sitting down and studying. The teachers have been great.

“I’m actually really grateful. It’s a treat to think of it, after 30 years, to go back.”

Now a licensed chemical-dependency professional, McGuirl has done a little bit of everything.

Commercial fishing? Check. Licensed boat captain? You bet. Carpentry? Yep. A key contributor to legislation for chemical-dependancy professionals? That too.

However, the one constant has been music. Lots of it.

McGuirl, whose mother was a jazz pianist, learned violin as his first instrument. He started playing guitar and electric bass in the 1960s and later took up mandolin, which he recently used for a final project in his French course and a song about CCRI.

 

McGuirl, ever-inspired by famed slide-guitarist Ry Cooder, has many stories to tell about his life as a professional musician.

He’s played folk music and old-time American music. He spent a decade touring New England as part of a traditional Celtic band. He played an entire summer on Block Island. He’s performed at countless charity events. He’s a seasoned stage manager; setting up for Bob Dylan – with Al Gore in the audience – at an early 2000s Newport Folk Festival is a career highlight.

Don’t be surprised if you hear McGuirl’s voice sometime this summer. He has events lined up in Bristol, East Greenwich, East Providence, and Newport, to name a few.

But first up is graduating college, with an eye toward walking across a different kind of stage next spring at CCRI commencement.

“That would be absolutely fantastic,” McGuirl said of potentially walking at graduation. “I haven’t done that since high school. I’m looking forward to it.”

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